BENTON, La. – A Bossier City man who fatally shot a customer at his watermelon stand almost five years ago was convicted Thursday in Bossier District Court.

A Bossier Parish jury found Colton Matthews, 29, guilty of manslaughter. He was originally charged with second-degree murder.

Matthews will be sentenced in February. He faces a sentence of up to 40 years instead of a life in prison.

The shooting happened in November 2020 in the parking lot of a pawn shop owned by Matthews’ father. Matthews had a watermelon stand set up there.

Matthews and a customer, Joe Williams Jr., 65, of Bossier City, got into an argument about a watermelon Williams purchased earlier in the day. When Williams got home, he discovered the melon was bad and went back to Matthews’ stand to return it.

The two men a

See Full Page